Search Engine Land reported on Oct. 29 that Findrix analyzed 55,198 AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. In the U.S. product answers reviewed, 57% of AI Mode product-answer links led to Google Shopping product pages, and 46.5% of AI Mode product answers linked only to Google-owned pages.
Findrix measured links displayed in AI answers, not where users clicked, what users bought or whether merchant traffic fell.
Product searches appear to be the main pressure point
The Google Shopping pattern was strongest in several retail categories. According to the Search Engine Land report, AI Mode linked only to Google pages in 60.4% of swimwear answers, 57% of women’s everyday fashion answers, 54.1% of sun care answers and 53.8% of activewear answers. Sports nutrition was a notable exception in the data, with only 7.6% of answers linking only to Google pages.
Services and software looked different. The same report said 5.1% of AI Mode links for local-service questions, including plumbers, lawyers and dentists, went to Google pages. For software questions, that figure was 1.1%.
That split matters because it suggests the Google Shopping effect is not simply an AI Mode-wide linking habit. It appears tied to categories where Google has structured product data, prices, ratings and inventory information available through its shopping systems.
Google built AI Mode shopping around product data
Google has been clear that AI Mode shopping is built around its Shopping Graph. In its own shopping announcements, Google said AI Mode brings Gemini model capabilities together with the Shopping Graph, which includes more than 50 billion product listings and refreshes more than 2 billion listings every hour.
Google’s newer Merchant Center documentation also points in the same direction. Its conversational attributes page says merchants can submit optional product-feed fields that help AI systems and conversational agents understand product details across AI-driven surfaces such as AI Mode in Search. Those fields include question and answer, document link, related product, item group title, variant option and popularity rank.
Google has also added reporting for this shift. Its AI performance insights documentation says eligible Merchant Center accounts can see how brands and products are discovered for conversational shopping queries in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google says the report is available for English-language queries in Merchant Center accounts in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United States, and that current data is limited to organic AI traffic rather than paid ads.
Referral traffic may understate product visibility
For retailers, the practical consequence is measurement. If a shopper discovers a product through an AI Mode answer that points first to a Google Shopping product page, the discovery may happen inside Google’s interface before any site visit. Analytics tools may then show less direct referral context than the visibility actually created.
Google’s Search Central documentation says appearances in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in Search Console’s Performance report under the Web search type. For retailers trying to isolate AI Mode shopping performance, that means Search Console alone may not show the whole path from an AI answer to a product impression, product-card interaction or purchase.
This fits a broader AI search pattern Tech Help Canada has covered before: SEO still matters, but discovery is spreading across answer surfaces, product feeds, structured data and AI-specific reporting. AI Overviews and AI Mode do not remove the need for useful, crawlable pages; they add another layer between the query and the click.
Google Shopping is becoming part of the answer layer
AI Mode is also moving closer to transactions. Google’s Search Help documentation says eligible U.S. retailers can show checkout options directly from certain AI Mode product listings, with Google Pay used for payment and shipping details. The feature is limited to signed-in adult users in the U.S. using English, and Google says the merchant still handles payment, shipping, returns and customer support.
That makes the shopping result more than a source link. In some cases, it can act as the product detail view, comparison surface and checkout entry point. The retailer may remain the seller of record, but Google can control more of the discovery and decision-making experience before the shopper reaches the merchant’s own site.
What retailers should take from the study
Retailers should treat Merchant Center product data as AI-search infrastructure, not just feed maintenance for ads or free listings. Product titles, descriptions, GTINs, images, product details, pricing and availability still matter. The newer conversational fields matter because Google is explicitly tying them to AI-driven shopping surfaces.
Google’s question-and-answer attribute page also sets limits that retailers should read carefully. It says product Q&As should contain accurate information about the product, not keyword lists or time-sensitive details such as prices and dates. Since product-feed content can feed conversational shopping answers, inaccurate or over-optimized data may create problems across more places than a classic Shopping listing.
The safer response is not to chase a special AI trick. It is to make product data more complete, accurate and current, then compare Merchant Center AI performance insights with referral, organic, Shopping and conversion data. AI Mode visibility may need to be measured as a blend of product impressions, feed eligibility, share of voice, brand mentions and on-site revenue, not only as visits from google.com.
The evidence should be read narrowly
Findrix tested 18,400 buyer questions across 35 U.S. markets from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17, asking each question once per platform, according to Search Engine Land. AI systems change quickly, and Google announced several link-display updates on Oct. 15, including more inline links and tests for dedicated official-source sections in AI Search experiences.
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